by Janet Woods
Mr Leighton came in. ‘Sara?’
She pulled herself together. ‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘Are you all right? Your voice is shaking.’
She sucked in a breath to steady it. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Come into the morning room. I want to speak to you.’
She grinned. ‘Certainly, Mr Leighton. Miss Chapman has left a note with me for you.’
Eagerness filled his voice. ‘What does it say?’
‘It says that if you can be patient and wait until the appropriate time, your housekeeper will open it and read it to you.’
She made a big show of opening it, rustling the paper until he growled, ‘Have you ever felt like strangling someone?’
‘Often . . .’ She grinned and cleared her throat.
Dear Finch,
On behalf of my brother and myself, our heartfelt thanks for your hospitality over the past few days. Adam’s illness could have become more serious without your intervention and the dedicated care of your staff, especially Miss Serafina, to whom we have both become attached.
I do hope you’ll call on us when next you are in London. Please feel at liberty to visit us at the agency, which is not far from your London home, and will be more convenient for you than travelling to Chiswick, I feel.
With best wishes from us both.
Celia Chapman
Sara gazed at her employer, a suspicion growing in her mind. ‘What agency is that, Mr Leighton?’
‘Adam Chapman has his own detecting agency in London. He’s becoming well thought of in legal circles, and will no doubt do well for himself in the future. Didn’t he mention it to you?’
‘Yes . . . yes, he did . . . he was teasing about it; said I might be a princess he was looking for.’ She gave a faint smile. ‘I’d forgotten.’
‘Do you think you are Adam’s lost princess?’
She stared at him for a moment then chuckled. ‘You know that could never be, but you might be Celia’s lost prince.’
‘I hope you are right. Was that all Celia said in her letter?’
‘Yes . . . but she mentioned to me in private that she’d rather you had approached her directly with your request.’
‘I deserve a reprimand. Did she say anything about my lack of sight being a factor.’
‘It was more of a retort really. She snorted and said, Utter nonsense!’ Placing the letter in his hand she was about to walk away when she thought to ask him, ‘Did you know that Adam Chapman ran a detecting agency before he came here?’
‘I’d heard of him.’
‘He asked me questions about my past.’
‘He’s curious about people, that’s his nature. I believe he’s very good at what he does, and is both thorough and discreet.’
Sara was satisfied by his answer to a certain extent because she instinctively trusted Finch Leighton. ‘Sometimes I thought there was a definite purpose behind his questions.’
‘Perhaps there was. He seemed attracted to you.’
She was glad he couldn’t see her blush as she remembered Adam kissing her – and of her allowing him to. Nevertheless, she dismissed the suggestion with a sharp retort. ‘I’m a servant and he was flirting. Adam Chapman is a handsome man who would attract women – not me of course,’ she added hastily. ‘He would have forgotten me before they got to the station.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, my dear,’ he said with a smile, and slipped the letter into his pocket. ‘Would you fetch my coat, Sara. I’m going out for a walk around the garden. There are certain things I need to think about and later I’d like you to write a letter for me. It’s of a private nature.’
‘You know, Mr Leighton, you wouldn’t have forgotten how to form your letters, so I’m sure there’s a way of writing you could learn if you needed to keep matters private, as long as you don’t mind using a pencil . . . well, at first, anyway. Mastering pen and ink might be a bit messy.’
‘How?’ And he said it so eagerly that she smiled.
‘If I can find some cardboard I’ll show you when you come back.’
While he was out she cut a slot in a piece of cardboard, making it wide enough to fit inside a frame of cardboard and slide up and down.
He was surrounded by an aura of cold when he came back. Impatiently, he said, ‘Have you done it? Explain it to me.’
She waited until he was seated. ‘Feel in front of you.’
His fingers ran around the cardboard. ‘It’s a frame?’
‘Yes. It’s the same size as your notepaper and will fit over it and form your margins. Your notepaper is in the right-hand drawer.’
When she rustled a piece of his notepaper he took it from her and placed it under the frame. His fingers went around the edges making sure it was lined up. Picking up the small piece of slotted cardboard he frowned. ‘What do I do with this?’
‘You place it inside the frame, write your words inside the slot, then when you reach the end of the row you turn it over and down for the next line. You’re going to have to use feel and memory, and make allowances for spaces.’ She placed the pencil in his fingers. ‘Try it . . . write your name.’
She could almost experience his concentration as he applied himself to the task and wrote, My name isfinch Leighton.
She told him, ‘You’ve forgotten the space after is, and the capital letter of your first name, but it doesn’t matter. It’s readable and you’ll get better at it if you practise. I’ve sharpened a couple of pencils and they’re in the holder on your right.’
‘How did you think of this?’
‘I didn’t think of it, Elizabeth Pawley did. She used the slotted cardboard to help the children in the workhouse reduce the size of their letters, but it was on a slate and with chalk. I adapted it, that’s all. It’s better than nothing. I believe she did charity work, visiting the blind at home and teaching children their alphabets. She said there were books with raised letters in for blind people to read.’
‘There are, but they’re clumsy and heavy, and take a devil of a long time. Mrs Pawley sounds like a worthy and pious woman; how did she end up in the workhouse?’
‘When her father died he was deeply in debt. He was a church cleric too, which is probably why she was content to marry a man like Reverend Pawley, and grateful that he had motherless children for her to care for. I think you would like her if you met her.’
‘I’m sure I would. You know, you have a good heart, Serafina.’
She smiled, for the name had stuck with her since they’d called her that at the social evening. She might as well make it her own now she was grown up.
‘What does my writing look like?’
‘It’s a bit wobbly, but readable, and it will improve with practice as you grow in confidence. Now . . . I’d better get on with my work. I’ll check on your progress in a little while.’
Finch hadn’t expected to fall in love and wondered if his letter to Celia Chapman was too premature, since he didn’t want to frighten her off. He was man enough to know that somebody else might sweep her off of her feet if he left it too long. Only God knew what it looked like, he thought as he sealed it. What he did know was that his words were more fluent than they would have been if he’d dictated the letter, and he’d apologized to Celia in advance in case it was hard to read.
The more he learned of Serafina the more he liked her, and she had a sensible head on her shoulders despite her youth. Although he didn’t want to lose her he hoped the young woman would turn out to be what Adam wanted her to be. And if she didn’t . . . that Adam would accept her for what she was, a hard-working, intelligent and loyal young woman.
Eleven
Christmas and New Year had come and gone quickly. Gifts had been exchanged and Serafina had been the recipient of a warm coat with a shawl collar and a matching bonnet and muff.
‘I heard your teeth chattering in church, and Maggie told me that Frederick’s dogs had ruined your cape,’ Mr Leighton said by way of explanation for such a handsome g
ift.
Mr Leighton went to London to attend a wedding in January. He was due to return in April. Then the skies were wreathed in sunshine one minute and weeping all over the landscape the next. The daffodils were a moving ocean of lambent yellow and the trees newly born in tender shades of green. Catkins swung in the breeze like velvety golden tassels buzzing with bees – and in the eaves, house martins were busy with their nests and offspring.
Serafina allowed the spring air to circulate through the windows.
It was to be a month of wedding announcements. First Giles and Jassy. ‘We’re getting married next month,’ he’d said, and had turned a bright red. ‘Jassy’s got a young’un inside her, she reckons. Anyway, I’m going to live at the farm and work for her pa, because the farm will be ours one day and I’ve got to learn how to run it, like.’
‘You’ll have to give Mr Leighton proper notice, mind,’ Maggie said. ‘He’s been good to you, giving you a job when you was down and out and didn’t have a roof over your head.’
‘I’m not daft. I knows that, don’t I, Maggie? Now I can write I reckon I’ll put it down on paper, so it’s legal, and private from the likes of you. I’ll give it to him next time he comes down from London and I’ll stay until he finds someone else.
‘In the meantime you can mind your own business and stop being so bossy.’
Maggie retorted, ‘You might have learned to write, but you’re still a cider sucker if you think he can read it. He’ll need someone else to tell him what’s in your legal note.’
‘Cider sucker yourself,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’ll read it to him mesself, won’t I?’
Finch Leighton arrived unannounced at the beginning of May. His face was wreathed with smiles as he gathered the staff together and said, ‘Miss Celia Chapman has accepted my proposal of marriage. We’re to be wed in July, and will travel to Italy for a month before returning here to Leighton Manor in August to live.’
After accepting the congratulations he headed off to the morning room. ‘Serafina, I’d like to talk to you. Bring coffee for us both, please.’
Her employer was in his usual chair when she went in. She placed his coffee on the table and took the seat opposite.
He said, ‘What’s that perfume? It’s making my throat a little husky.’
‘It’s blackthorn blossom. Is the fragrance too strong?’
‘It is a little, but it’s lovely . . . move it to the mantelpiece if you would.’
She did as she was told and seated herself again. He cleared his throat. ‘Adam Chapman is coming to visit you next week.’
Her heart gave a jolt. ‘Why should he want to see me? I’m nothing to him.’
His forehead creased into a frown. ‘This is business, not personal.’
‘Business . . . what business can he have with me?’
‘It’s complicated, but he’s asked me to prepare you.’
Bewildered, she gazed at him. ‘I don’t understand; prepare me for what?’
‘Of course you don’t understand, since I haven’t explained, yet,’ he said testily. ‘Don’t keep interrupting else I’ll be here all day. When Adam Chapman was taken ill he was looking for you.’
‘Me?’
‘He had no intention of approaching you. He just wanted to take a look at you when he got caught in that storm . . . you know what happened next.’
She took a deep breath, exaggerating her sigh as she set it free.
He grinned. ‘He’s traced your progress from the day you were born, through an orphanage in Dorset where you were left as a newborn baby. The orphanage was supported by an elderly woman called Constance Serafina Jarvis, who Adam believes was your relative. She made certain arrangements, and when she died you went to the farm in Gloucester with two of her trusted servants and their family.’
She remembered his questions and felt dismay. ‘The Fenns.’
‘Yes. From there you went to the workhouse, then into the Pawley household before coming to work for me.’
Adam had told her about his job . . . but he’d made light of it to put her off guard and trick her into answering questions about herself. Anger trickled through her and she stood. ‘I see, thank you for telling me, sir.’
‘Sit down, Serafina. I haven’t finished.’
‘My name isn’t Serafina, it’s Sara Finn.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, don’t get your hackles up with me. Adam doesn’t know if you are Serafina, but the name Sara Finn is so similar and you are familiar with it, so it’s not likely to be a coincidence. The alternative is that you’re Mary Fenn. You told Adam yourself that you used to swap names and parents.’
She grabbed at the familiar. ‘Yes, that’s it, I remember now . . . I’m Mary Fenn. Can I go now?’
There was a short silence then he said. ‘Yes, go.’
‘A pity you’re being so stubborn,’ he said when she was halfway to the door. ‘If you’d stay you’d discover that Serafina Honeyman has two sisters. There is also a man who thinks he may be her father, and would dearly love to discover his daughter’s whereabouts, and find her.’
Dear God, a family . . . her own family after all this time. Her heart began to ache and her knees weaken. ‘This man who says he might be Serafina’s father, tell me about him.’
‘He’s a seafaring man who has employed Adam Chapman to find you. One of Serafina’s sisters was called Charlotte, the other is Marianne.’
She began to tremble. Could this be true? ‘Why didn’t Adam tell me? Why did he pretend to be interested in me for my own sake. He . . .’ She pulled herself together. ‘You said Adam doesn’t know for certain, and this man only might be Serafina’s father. That means that he might not be.’
‘It means exactly that. Serafina might share a father with her sisters, she might not.’
‘What of my mother? What type of woman would have both husband and lover . . . then give away her infant?’
‘A woman who married for convention’s sake, and who fell in love with someone else, my dear – one who lost her life giving birth to her third beloved daughter.’
She was responsible for her mother’s death then. ‘Then how . . .?’
‘Everything pointed to her husband. The sisters were told that Serafina had died with her mother, but recently the younger of the pair got it into her head that you might be alive.’
Everything inside Serafina seemed to collapse and she dropped into the nearest chair. ‘What if I’m Mary Fenn?’
‘And what if you are Serafina Honeyman? Adam wants to take you to meet the man who might have fathered you, in case there is a family resemblance.’
‘And if there isn’t?’
‘Then no harm is done. I thought you’d be pleased to know that you might be part of a family.’
‘No harm done! For the first time since I can remember I am truly happy. Sara Finn knew her place in life. Now you tell me I’m not her, and I’m probably not Mary Fenn either, but I could be – in all likelihood – a woman called Serafina Honeyman, who was responsible for her mother’s death and was cast from the family home because she was born a bastard. And you expect me to feel pleased about it.’
Hadn’t she often imagined herself as part of a family, of having siblings and a mother and a father? Though she took a deep breath, the panic rioting inside her didn’t subside. Now she was faced with it she didn’t think she’d be able to handle it. Illusion was one thing, reality another. They were strangers. What if they didn’t like her, or her them? ‘What if Serafina Honeyman had died after all, and this family finds out later and accuses me of being an imposter?’ she said.
Mr Leighton snapped, ‘Stop talking about yourself as if you’re a third party you invented. If you can’t discuss this without getting emotional and feeling sorry for yourself, you can go away until you can.’
The hurt she felt hit her like a blow, so her throat swelled with the ache of unshed tears. ‘Sorry . . . I’m sorry.’ But she hated him for wounding her, and rising from the chair
she opened the door and went through it, slamming it behind her.
‘Serafina, come back here!’ he shouted.
‘Leave me alone. My past is none of your business,’ she tossed at him in reply. She left the house at a run and pounded through the garden, going past an astonished Joseph Tunney who was bent to a flower-bed, his fingers gouging into the crumbly earth to loosen the hold of the spring weeds. She headed for the copse as though a hound from hell was after her. Ignoring the small wooden bridge she splashed across the knee-deep stream on the way and tripped up the muddy bank. Her skirt was now slimed with mud and flapped wetly against her legs. Her boots filled up with cold water that slopped over the top with every step she took.
She stopped, gasping when she ran out of breath, and she sank down on a fallen log covered in brightly coloured layers of fungus. It was cool in the shade of the copse and the long bracts of thorny blackberry bushes plucked at her clothes. Underfoot, the layer of compressed leaves oozed water left there from the showers, and the air smelled of mould, mushrooms, bruised pine needles and decay.
The old woman had smelled of mould. She’d been dressed in a nightgown, her hair spread around her.
‘Kiss your aunt goodbye, Serafina.’
Her skin had been grey, and patched with brown liver spots, her lips purple. Close up they were surrounded by downy grey hairs that brushed against Serafina’s lips. The long, silver hair that Serafina had been allowed to brush when the woman was feeling old and tired, was fashioned into a severe braid wrapped around her head.
Why won’t Aunt Constance talk to me? Where is she going? She’s so cold.
‘The dead are always cold because they have no soul to warm them. God has claimed her soul and taken it to heaven. Be glad you don’t look like her with that gypsy face and coarse skin. You’re coming to live with us now, on a farm far away from here. That’s her legacy to you, to all of us. We will be your family. She wanted you taken away where nobody will know about you and the shame you brought down on the family. You’re unclean, and from now on you’ll be Sara Fenn.’
After that, Serafina had lost herself. She didn’t want to be unclean and bring down shame on anyone.